


Let Us

by K_K_TiBal, whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 17:57:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_K_TiBal/pseuds/K_K_TiBal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: Sharing a space is never easy. Dean’s still very green to relationships, and Cas has spent too long alone - the domestic life was never going to be easy. Sometimes the atmosphere between them gets frosty, and they have some important lessons to learn. If only they could just talk about it...





	

The night was cold, but the inside of the fridge… it was colder.

Cas peered down into the vegetable drawer from the top shelf. There was another lettuce in there.

This other lettuce was well-shaped, crispy-looking, and the tips of its fresh leaves were so... green… beautifully green.

*

Dean looked up and caught sight of what appeared to be a slightly wilted piece of radicchio peering down at him. It was obviously a little bit older than he was; Dean was a bold young lettuce, who had only just been placed in the crisper drawer of the fridge. His leaves were still full of chlorophyllic vitality. 

"Well," he mused. "Guess we're both doomed, huh? I hear this is the last stop for our kind."

No one could hear him. He was a lettuce. They do not have mouths.

*

Cas stared down at the strong green iceberg lettuce below him. There seemed to be something sad about the way it rested up against the fridge wall. That was fair, thought Cas. After all, neither of them were long for this world...

For the first time, looking down at the iceberg lettuce, that thought made him a little sad. He wished he could get closer to it. With a great effort, he managed to roll over once on his shelf.

He was briefly concerned about how he’d done it - he had no muscles - but then he remembered he had no brain to worry with, either. 

So it was OK.

*

If Dean had the existence of eyebrows on his green, leafy exterior, he would have raised them. But seeing as he didn't, he just stared with the eyes he did not have.

The other lettuce seemed like it was making an effort to get a little closer to him. Odd. Dean didn't think there was anything particularly interesting about him. He was just kind of… green.

He wondered whether all lettuces felt insecure sometimes.

*

Cas rolled forwards again, not even sure what he was trying to do. It wasn't as though he was going to be able to get into the drawer, no matter how far he rolled. Was the green lettuce looking up at him? If he'd had a heartbeat, it would have been quickening in his leafy, leafy chest.

Just then, the door of the fridge was pulled open. Cas, who had rolled to the very front of the fridge, felt himself starting to fall.

"Whoa, there," said a deep, human voice, and then he was being caught in two strong hands. "Better put you in the crisper drawer, buddy."

Cas could barely believe his luck as he was lowered into the drawer, right next to the brilliantly green lettuce.

*

Dean nearly panicked when he saw the man open the fridge. Was this it? Was this... the end? 

No.

The purple head of lettuce was dropped down next him. He was vaguely intimidated by it, the radicchio. It had been in the fridge for longer than he had. It knew things. Struggling so as not to antagonize the other plant, he scooted over to one side of the crisper. His non-existent muscles struggled to get it done. 

But he got it done.

The mustard was laughing at him.

*

Cas could hardly believe his luck. Yes, the other lettuce had rolled away from him, but perhaps that had just been out of politeness, a common affliction in the lettuce species. 

He wanted to get closer again, but couldn't think how to ask. He envied the humans their simple methods of communication. It was hard to get across the way he was feeling, as a lettuce.

He flopped out the uppermost of his leaves, letting it fall down close to where the green lettuce was sitting. He tried not to notice the fact that the leaf was wilting just a little. He knew it happened to all lettuces of a certain age. He had heard the statistic ‘four out of five’ mentioned.

If he didn't get eaten soon, they'd throw him out anyway.

*

Dean jumped a little when the other lettuce flopped down its leaf - or he would have if he could have, if he could have, but he couldn’t. He did it in spirit. 

He gazed curiously at the radicchio. What did it want? Was it asserting its dominance? Trying to be friendly? Emotions were so hard to read... as a lettuce. 

Dean rolled over and nudged the other vegetation cluster, just slightly. To see how it would react. Not hard enough to bruise, however.

*

Gosh. A  _ nudge.  _ Cas didn't know where to put himself. That was good, because he tended to stay where he was put, and didn’t have much choice in the matter. After all, he had no muscles to move with. All the movement that had happened before hadn’t happened.

It appeared that the other lettuce didn't entirely mind him being around. Cas lifted up his flopped-down leaf and let it delicately graze the invisible, beautiful face of the other lettuce.  _ You are the most beautiful salad ingredient I've ever seen, and I want to spend the rest of my ripeness with you, even though that might not be too long,  _ he tried to say with the simple gesture. He hoped the exact phrasing would carry in the fluttering of his leafy limb.

He noticed the mustard watching their every move. Beside it, the mayo jar was looking tall and smug.

*

It was angry with him. 

Dean could tell. 

Oh, no. Why had he nudged it at all? He could have stayed far on his side of the crisper and never moved and everything would have been fine. He wouldn't now have a leaf flopping in his face if he hadn't been so antagonistic. He had lived long enough to see himself become the villain. A shiver ran down his stalk, his anxiety increasing as he realized  _ just how beautiful _ the other lettuce's shade of purple was. It was almost as intimidating as it was lovely. 

*

The other lettuce was shivering under his touch. Cas didn't know a lot about lettuce etiquette, a.k.a. lettiquette, but he imagined that this could only be a bad sign. What could he possibly have done wrong? He had no idea, but he couldn't let this go on any longer. He regretfully pulled away from the green lettuce, and rolled over to the corner of the crisper drawer, too upset to care about biology or plot continuity.

If the green lettuce wanted to come and sit next to him, it could, but he couldn't force his presence on it - not if the green lettuce was angry, or scared. He felt terribly sad to think that he might have unknowingly irritated the other lettuce. And he felt angry at himself. And he felt scared of doing it again. 

He was a very, very emotional vegetable.

He wished he had lungs with which to sigh, and lament his catastrophic and disastrous situation. Was he condemned to be forever on his own? Was there nothing he could touch without wreaking a terrible destruction?

Maybe he was doomed to live like this for all eternity: a cursed head of lettuce.

*

Dean's shivering subsided after a few moments, only to come back with a vengeance as the door to the refrigerator opened again. The same man from before opened up the crisper and set his hand on top of Dean. 

Oh, no. This was the end. This was it.  _ Great Lettuce in the Sky, guide me home _ . He was going to be eaten for sure. 

The man picked him up, hummed, and set him back down right next to the other lettuce. The man then picked up an apple, and shut the fridge again. 

Dean leaned against the other lettuce, shivering and not even caring whether it was friend or foe. He'd almost died, like for realsies, and all he wanted to do was shut that memory out again. 

*

Cas wanted to comfort the green lettuce, but he didn't know how. The leaf-draping fiasco was still fresh as a green tomato in his mind. So instead, he just nudged the green lettuce a little bit, in what he hoped seemed like a friendly manner - and then sat still and relaxed, letting the green lettuce calm down in its own time, and perhaps be ready to nudge back.

In the meantime, Cas put his lettucey mind to work. He couldn't allow the green lettuce to be eaten, and he really didn't want to be eaten himself. It just went against his moral code.

It was time. Time, it was. Was it time? 

Yes. 

Time to bust out of the crisper drawer.

*

Dean appreciated now what he was fairly sure was a comforting gesture from the beautiful lettuce. That was very nice of it. Maybe everything it'd done had been something kind and he'd just misinterpreted it. Dean allowed himself to relax against the older lettuce and if he had lungs to take deep, calming, breaths, he surely would have used them. He did not, so he did not.

Something about how still the other lettuce had become made him wonder if it was deep in thought. Probably not. Lettuce could not think.

*

Cas was deep in thought.

He could see only one way out of this crisper drawer. He began to ease out from under the green lettuce, attempting to get across with the gentleness of his leafy movements that he wasn't trying to escape the other lettuce's welcome presence - which was quite exciting in a lettucey way - but rather escape the crisper drawer, the fridge, and the very possibility of getting snacked on itself. 

He rolled all the way to the back of the drawer, and then pelted forwards as fast as he could, ramming himself into the front of the drawer. That thing he’d thought before about how lettuces couldn’t move on their own was completely forgotten, which was lucky, or else  it would have been a plot hole in an otherwise flawless narrative.

The drawer moved forwards a few inches. This might actually work, thought Cas, as he lined himself up for another go. The green lettuce was watching him, though whether it was with judgement or approval or just sheer lettucey confusion, Castiel wasn't yet sure.

*

What the  _ hell _ was that lettuce head doing? Didn't it realize that if it kept ramming itself against the the plastic, it was going to worsen its wilt? Dean jolted when he realized that with every smack, the drawer moved forward a few inches. But it would be impossible to get out with the door to the fridge still closed. Dean pondered for a few moments before rolling to the back with the other head of lettuce. Maybe the two of them could knock the door open with their combined force. 

*

Cas felt hope building inside when he saw the green lettuce come to join him in his efforts. The way the fridge light reflected off its shiny, fresh leaves was almost beautiful enough to distract him from his purpose. But he soon refocused when he remembered why they were doing this - he had to save this lettuce from the terrible promise of salad.

Together they rolled and rolled again - but the fridge door remained firmly closed. Cas could feel his inner leaves starting to bruise.

*

Dean could easily admit to himself that he was a big, strong lettuce, but the task of getting the door to open with the two of them was seeming more and more hopeless. He was tired and bruised and had definitely squished some of his leaves beyond repair. Dean finally rolled to a stop and slumped against the back of the crisper. 

They were never going to get it open on their own. 

*

Cas could feel the non-existent eyes of all the other fridge-dwellers resting on himself and the green lettuce. They must look fairly stupid, he thought wryly. Two lettuces, making a bid for freedom. Trying to choose their own path, instead of letting the humans and the salad-spinners decide. Who had ever heard of anything so stupid, so... futile?

"That's what I get for being a vegetable," thought Cas. "All my efforts will always be... fruitless."

But then, suddenly, he heard a heavy thunk from above. And then another, and another. Cas could hardly believe his eyes. A lump of golden cheese, a tall and leafy celery stick, even a big jar labelled 'Bobby's Meatball Sauce'... all the different fridge foods were hurling themselves at the door. Great Lettuce above, they were trying to help them escape.

*

Had Dean been able to hear the pun that went on in Castiel's lettuce mind, he would have rolled eyes that he did not have. 

Being as it was, Dean was amazed at the overwhelming presence of all other foods and how they were all sacrificing their freshness to help open up the door. The entire refrigerator was shaking with the sheer force of their combined efforts. Dean took one last roll and threw himself forward with the other lettuce, and tumbled to the ground as the door creaked open. 

*

They were out. They were free.

Like the waters that cascade at Niagara, the two lettuces flopped to the floor. They began to roll, momentum doing most of the work for them - which was lucky, since it would have been completely impossible for them to move alone.

_ I am reminiscent of Lettuce Moses,  _ Cas thought, as he tumbled joyfully out of the kitchen and into the hall.  _ I lead this other lettuce to freedom. _

The green lettuce looked at least averagely pleased.

They rolled onwards, and further still. The shouts of the human behind them did not stop their progress.  _ Nay, ye Rameses,  _ thought Cas, and pressed on, hurling his leafy body faster.  _ Not today. _

The front door was locked - shock, horror! Catastrophe! Cas could almost hear the children complaining about having to eat his comparatively nasty purple leaves.

But sometimes, even the most average of lettuces are blessed - by the existence of a catflap.

With a merely mildly-impossible leap, Cas and the green lettuce were out in the world.

It was big. It was bright. It smelled weird to their non-existent noses. By Great Lettuce above, it was good.

Cas and the green lettuce took it all in for a moment, using none of the five senses. Then, they turned to each other.

_ Shall we?  _ the green lettuce seemed to ask, with a little tilt of its oh-so-svelte emerald body.

And Cas, with a familiar leaf thrown around the other lettuce’s not-shoulders, replied as best he could, 

_ Yes.  _

_ Let us. _

__

**Author's Note:**

> Art by whelvenwings (2017). Please don't repost.
> 
> Happy April Fool's, everyone!! Thank you for reading, we hope you enjoyed our "Let Us" AU. 
> 
> Tag yourselves in the comments... Em is "a very, very emotional vegetable" and Mich is "non-existent muscles"


End file.
